Droutinelife: Dana Gillespie About

Dana Gillespie is a singer, an actress, a songwriter. She has been a radio person and a theater artist as well. She was also a sportsperson once British junior water-skiing champion. Dana has given many stage performances too.

Stage appearances: Jesus Christ Superstar, The Tempest, Tommy, Cinderella and two one-woman shows Cora and The Dirtiest Blues In Town.

Dana’s current shows: An Audience with Dana Gillespie and Dana Gillespie & the London Blues Band.

Dana’s theatre shows: in London’s West End theatres, in shows: the first run of Jesus Christ Superstar (playing Mary Magdalene) The Who’s “Tommy” (playing the Acid Queen) and the rock Othello, “Catch My Soul”

TV appearances: Ready Steady Go, Little & Large and Seaside Special.

Sit coms: ‘Til Death Do Us Part and Mum’s Boys. More recently she has been on Pebble Mill and TV AM, William Tell, The Bill and Sunday Pursuit.

Albums: Weren’t Born a Man, Blues It Up, Boogie Woogie Nights, MORE

The British Blues Connection and Blueprint Magazine voted Dana as ‘‘Top British Female Blues Vocalist‘ between the years 1992 and 1996.

Dana is indeed an International Blues legend. Dana has been singing blues from a very early age. She has been into singing for over 45 years.Dana says: “I discovered the blues when I went to the American Folk Blues Festival in 1962 and also to see the Yardbirds at the Marquee Club. I was in my early teens and hadn’t heard anything like it before – blues wasn’t easily available in the UK back then”. “Blues was my first musical love because it’s earthy, spiritual and honest.” “I believe the blues should be sung by an older person because it’s about emotions and experience. I couldn’t do justice to it when I was younger because my voice didn’t have the edge it needed to convey the emotion, nor did I have the first hand experience to sing about blue themes convincingly”, she adds.

After a wrap of singles on Pye and two LPs for Decca, Dana enthused to RCA and made WEREN’T BORN A MAN in 1973.